I feel a great affection for pickles. At home, in Idaho, where we have a regular sized fridge, I usually keep about 6 various jars of pickles open and ready for consumption. After a long day in the studio, I walk into our house, kick off my shoes, open the fridge and pull out a pickle jar, spear one with a fork, and sit down to eat one of the chilly little guys. They are so wonderfully refreshing. I prefer a pickle to a piece of chocolate. I prefer a pickle to a cold beer! Robert cannot comprehend it, but doesn’t question it since it leaves most of the chocolate to him. The beer too.
In point of fact, I like pickles so well that Tater Tot has the honorary nickname “PICKLE WART” — did you know that?
This year, at the Little Cabin In The Woods, I have been canning. I didn’t think it was possible to can with an electric hot plate (with really only one burner) so I didn’t attempt any preserves last season which I grew to deeply regret over the course of winter. In addition, there was the marinara kitchen carnage of 2012 at the smokejumper base mess hall that some of you will recall. It sort of put me off my preserving projects for the year…to say the least.
This year I’ve made more peach jam than we’ll be able to use (which means I get to give jars of it away to friends), peach lavender jam too, 30 jars of marinara sauce (so far), zucchini pickles, pickled beets and regular old cucumber pickles. I’m just getting started! Once canning season begins, I’m like a tornado in the kitchen. It’s utter madness. Delicious madness.
I wanted to share with you the three pickle recipes I have been using these past few weeks. They’re all easy peasy lemon squeezy. Buckle up, buttercups:
BEET PICKLES
This is my favorite pickle recipe, by far. I eat these babies straight-up, chopped up on salads, on steamed rice — throughout winter…
10-15 small fresh beets
2 cups cider vinear
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup water
1 cup peeled small whole onions
2 tsp pickling salt
2 tsp caraway seeds
1 tsp mustard seeds
[If your beets are medium or large, it’s fine. A beet is a beet.]
1. Cut the greens off your beets. If you are using small beets, you can use the greens in a salad!! Pop them in a pot, cover with water and boil them over high heat for about 40 minutes or so. Check to see if they are finished by stabbing them with a fork. Drain and rinse under cold water and rub them gently to remove the skins and the stalk stumps. If you are using larger beets, cut them into smaller pieces (whatever size you prefer).
2. Combine vinegar, sugar, water and salt in a pot, bring to a boil, stir occasionally to dissolve sugar.
3. Remove your squeaky clean jars from your canner! Divide onions, caraway seeds, mustard seeds evenly among your jars and then pack in your beet pieces.
4. Pour your vinegar mixture over beets to within a 1/2 inch of the rim of the jar. Screw on your lids and submerge the jars in your canner bath. Boil for 35 minutes.
*If I have more beets than I have vinegar mixture, I just whip up another batch of vinegar mixture or I eat the leftover beets. No biggie. I usually do four batches of beets at once to make it worth my time.
DILL PICKLES
*I like this recipe because these cucumbers don’t need to soak in brine overnight.
16-20 small pickling cucumbers
2 cups white vinegar
2 cups water
2 tbsp pickling salt
1 tbsp granulated sugar
a handful of fresh dill heads (the yellow blossom part) — I like to put about 2 in each jar because they are delicious and beautiful
4 cloves of garlic
2 tsp mustard seeds
—————————————
1. Cut a thin slice from the ends of each cucumber.
2. Prepare your brine by combining vinegar, water, salt and sugar in a pot — bring to a boil.
3. Remove your clean jars from your canner and place 1 or 2 dill heads, 1 or 2 garlic cloves and 1/2 tsp mustard seeds in each jar, pack with cucumbers and pour boiling vinegar mixture over top of jar contents. Screw on your lids and boil for 15 minutes.
Zucchini Pickles
*I know! Unheard of! This is a great recipe to use if you’re overrun with zucchini in your garden, which, is usually always.
2 lbs zucchini (ish)
1 tsp pickling salt
1 3/4 cups white vinegar
2/3 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
2 tbsp chopped fresh dill
a handful of dill heads (for beauty, of course)
2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper and dried thyme for EACH jar
1. Cut zucchini in strips (it looks nice if you cut them the length of the height of your canning jar), sprinkle with salt and let stand for 4 hours. Drain and rinse twice.
2. Mix vinegar, water, sugar, dill, parsley, pepper and thyme in a small pot, bring to a boil and stir until your sugar is dissolved.
3. Remove your clean jars from your canner where they have been boiling, pack your zuchini spears in the jars and pour the boiling vinegar mix over the jar contents to within a 1/2 inch of the jar rim. Screw on your lids and boil for 20 minutes.
*These turn out kind of sweet and spicy with an interesting texture that is quite different from a cucumber pickle.
There you have it!
Now that you know how I feel about the humble pickle, if you have a killer recipe please do send it my way!
Bless your little beets,
XX
Pickled Eggs (or whole okra pods)
1 dozen eggs (boiled & peeled)
10 pearl onions (I use strips of Vidalia or Maui onions, instead)
1 small jalapeño pepper (I use several)
1-1/4 C vinegar (white or cider)
1 C water
4-1/2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp Zatarain’s Liquid Crab Boil
15 clove buds
1/2 tsp celery seed
1/8 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated is best)
2 tsp salt (I use sea salt)
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp Zatarain’s Creole Seasoning
1/2 tsp crushed red pepper
1/2 tsp mustard seed (I mix yellow & brown)
1/8 tsp cinnamon
Boil eggs and peel. Place eggs in a sterilized quart jar with onions and jalapeño. Set aside. Add the next 13 ingredients to a 1-1/2 Qt saucepan and bring to a low boil. Cook for 3 minutes. Pour hot brine over eggs. Place lid on jar and refrigerate for at least 48 hours.
For pickled okra, substitute whole, raw okra pods for the boiled eggs.
I’ve never heat processed either of these pickles so, I don’t know how they would change in the in the true “canning” process but we are happy to enjoy them as quick, refrigerator pickles.
Awesome!!!
THANK YOU!
I would really like to get into canning this fall. Do you use a pressure canner? I’m starting to read up on it now… thinking of raiding my parent’s garden and making some zucchini pickles!
I use a regular, old school canner which is just a really big pot. You can get one from a local hardware store for about $15.
But a pressure canner would be nice!
I have a friend who always has an explosion each time she uses a pressure canner so I’m a touch wary of the things!
I will show this to Jason! He’s the pickle-creator in our family. Right now, we have rosemary sage pickles and some habanero pickles. We’re going ot pickle some okra we have hanging around our fridge, too.
Next time I get beets I’ll have to try beet pickles! I’m kind of running out of things to do with them and our CSA keeps on sendin’ them, so… might as well pickle them! You can pickle just about anything, after all.
I’d like to make jam, too, but it seems like such a tricky process!
Rosemary sage pickles!!!!!
Mmmmmmmm……
I’m going to do those next.
Jam is easy. Just try.
I’ve never canned anything in my life. Which is sad, but I figure after I graduate I’ll have more time to do such things 😀 I’ve always wanted to learn. I suppose I’d like to have a garden from which to can things, too (which I now have…kinda). Those recipes and goodies look amazing. Peach jam sounds utterly heavenly!
Glad you like the sound of peach jam, my friend. I’m going to send you a jar. X
So weird I was thinking of pickles just yesterday and easily convinced myself that the only pickling I will ever do will be in my head until I retire…I am willing though to give it a second thought after seeing your exuberance because I truly love a good pickle but it has to be a good pickle…I love the expression being in a pickle and I hope I don’t end up there…ha ha…great to see you lovely J. xx
I agree…there’s nothing worse than a BAD pickle…
forgot to ask…will you be making some of those blueberry earrings…I hope you say yes : )
I want to say YES but I don’t have any turquoise beads at the moment. I’ll be in Idaho next week and I’ll pop by my bead store and see what they have.
I grew up on Seven Day Pickles. Deliciously sweet!
http://www.mrswheelbarrow.com/2012/07/the-original-seven-day-pickle/
And… have you ever tried pickled eggs? Also, delicious.
http://www.wickedlocal.com/lancaster/newsnow/x955244615/Boiling-Point-Get-a-taste-of-summer-with-beet-pickled-eggs?zc_p=0
Both recipes are very common in south central PA – Amish and German in origin.
I love pickles. I need to start canning for real and make a bunch. The past few years, I just made refrigerator pickles, because I am not a confidant canner. I’m better with fermenting. I make a lot of sauerkraut. That – I adore!
Let’s have the kraut recipe, if you have a moment. I’d love to try making it!
Ok! Here it is. Sorry I took so long in writing it, but I knew I was making it soon, and wanted to wait til it was fresh in my mind.
Lacto-fermented Sauerkraut:
1/4 cup of whey (per quart of sauerkraut)
1/2 Tablespoon salt (or more to taste)
First, make whey by draining a quart of plain yogurt with live and active cultures. Pour yogurt into 2 layers of cheese cloth and tie opposite corners of cloth together, to make a bundle. Leave in colander, over bowl, for about 1 day. Store whey in clean jar in refrigerator.
Select one large or two small cabbages (green or purple). Remove outer leaves and discard. Halve cabbage and remove stem (core), then chop to desired size and thickness. (I like thin slices about 2 inches long, but it is up to you.)
Put chopped cabbage into a LARGE glass or metal bowl, sprinkle with salt and add whey. Stir, and cover for 15 minutes. Uncover, stir again, and taste for saltiness. If you want more salt, add some more in. Stir, and cover again for another 15. Keep doing this a few times – the salt should be draining the cabbage, and more liquid should be forming on the bottom of the bowl. If you have a kraut pounder, give it a go to help it along.
When there is more liquid on bottom of bowl than when you started with, and cabbage is wetter, you can pack it into canning jars. It really helps to have a kraut pounder* to do this, as you can really pack it in. If you end up with more than 1 quart of kraut, add more whey to the jars. Just think it is 1/4 cup (or 4 tablespoons) whey per quart (4 cups). So if you end up with another pint, add in 2 Tablespoons of whey, divided evenly between the two jars.
Cover, and let sit out. For the first 24 hours you can repeatedly uncover and press down with a pounder or the back of a spoon on the kraut to make the liquid rise to the top. The goal is for all the cabbage to be under liquid.
After the first 24 hours, seal and leave on your countertop for 4 days to a week. I like it at a week. You will probably see bubbles forming – that is a good thing! At the one week mark, pop the jars in the fridge and AFTER they are cold, open them up and enjoy! (If you open the jar and smell or taste it before it has had time in the refrigerator, it may smell “off”. Wait a bit, then try it.)
A good resource is the book “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Fermenting Foods” by Wardeh Harmon. She also has a web site where she teaches all of it – kraut, sourdough, etc. I learned it from my mother-in-law, but she learned from taking online courses from Wardeh.
Let me know if you have any questions!! I’m no expert, but my MIL is a whiz at all of it, so she can help! :)E
*I got my kraut pounder from http://www.krautpounder.com
I am not much of a pickler because it usually involves sweating in a hot kitchen in the middle of August. Makes me very cranky! Here is a recipe from one of my favorite food websites. These pickles aren’t boiled in a canner; after they cure in the sun for a few days, they are simply stored in the refrigerator. I just made my first batch so we’ll see how they turn out:
http://www.splendidtable.org/recipes/sunshine-sour-pickles
Sunshine Sour Pickles
Use leaves from oak, fig, cherry trees or grapevines for their tannins, ensuring a crisp pickle.
Ingredients
About 2 lbs. cucumbers
3 cups water
1 1/2 cups white vinegar
1/4 cup kosher salt
1/4 tsp. tumeric
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
4-6 cloves of garlic
1 Serrano, seeded
Scant 1/4 tsp. alum or two oak, cherry, fig or grape leaves
Large handful of fresh dill or 1 tbls. dill seeds
Instructions
Trim both ends from the cucumbers. Soak them in an icewater bath for one hour. Heat the salt, water and vinegar until the salt is dissolved.
Fill the jars with cucumbers, whole, in spears, or in chunks – dividing the spices, dill, garlic, and alum or leaves between the two jars.
Pour the brine over the cucumbers. You may have more than you need. Cover the jars.
Place the jars in a sunny location for three days, turning them every day so all the contents are exposed to the sun. If the weather is overcast, leave the pickles in the sun another day.
Cure the pickles in the refrigerator for ten days and they’ll keep for months in the refrigerator.
Reprinted with permission from Cathy Barrow. Copyright © 2012
Oooh, what perfect timing. I’ve never made pickled anything before, but am interested in the whole fermentation process (been doing kefir for the past month) & just bought pickling cukes yesterday so as to give it a try. I’ll follow your recipe…thanks for sharing!
How the heck do you do kefir???!!!
I only made it through a quarter of this post before I had to get up and get me a pickle. Seriously! Beet pickles sound delish! I usually make quick pickles every summer and make jam during the summer and fall. Blueberry Lime was this summer’s jam. Feel free to check it out: http://acozybee.blogspot.com/2013/07/slow-summer-recipe-small-batch.html
‘atta girl!
Ooh, blueberry lime sounds divine. Thanks for the link!
I have surely canned some BAD pickles; wiggly little guys that mushed when you pulled them out. No fork spearing for them. And, then, there were the crispers. mmmm….. I had ’em all to myself. I love you standing there with your jars and those rings outside the little cabin. All the things I love so much. You rock and like Brittany said earlier this week in another post: I “would basically like to be you one day, even just a little bit.” ditto.
xoxo Kerry
The fork spear is the true test of a good pickle. True? Of course true.
When I come to AZ this winter, I’m brining a jar of the goodies. You and I are going to perch on a granite boulder and eat the darn things while we watch the sun go down. Ok?
XX
And by BRINING I mean BRINGING….see? I have brine on the mind.
pickles.
love ’em.
with cheese.
with salmon.
with nothing.
pressure canners are easy-peasy once you figure out how to use them.
no explosion necessary.
xx
Ooh! They’re super good with cheese.
Maybe I should try the pressure canner. Should I try it??? I don’t know…
SHOULD I???
SMOOCHFEST,
XXXXXXXXXXX
DO try.
but get a new one with a dial gauge….and have it “checked” once a year for accuracy.
then you’re good to go.
[our cooperative extension office checks gauges for free.]
LOVE YOU. xxxxxxxx
…I could be canning at LIGHTSPEED!!!!! I cannot even fathom…
Your input is VERY appreciated, my friend.
X
LOL. Oh YOU.
YUM! Really wish I had access to loads of produce, for I’m a Pickle FEEN too!
They all sound and look delish! XOXO
Farmers market?
Farm share?
Make it happen, little pickletista!!!
XX
can’t wait to try your pickled beets recipe.
i saw a recipe for beet relish that i am dying to try…
i have a parallel situation with my love of pickles and nate’s love of chocolate (he doesn’t even like pickles, it is a shame. oh well, more for me!)
keep up the good canning!
oh, what tomato sauce recipe do you use?
xo
My wee girl rat terrier is nicknamed Pickle (among other names!)
One winter we were out in the back country and she insisted on running, as always, alongside the rig so that she might chase tracks and hope for the chance at a squirrel.
When she got back in the rig she was shaking cold and I said “oh she is a frozen poo-cicle”… a few more trips and our natural inclination to give our furry family multiple nicknames that comment morphed into “She’s a pickle”.
On a side note, she also has the unfortunate nickname of Stinky because as a youngster she had bad stomach issues which resulted in the worst gas (I’m glad she doesn’t read… she’d not be happy I shared! LOL). So more often than not our neighbors will hear us holler “Come On In Stinky Pickle!”
Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, Jillian! Perfect timing! I just got my weekly ‘panier biologique’ this afternoon full of beautiful bettraves!! A-picklin’ I will go tomorrow morning thanks to your great recipes! XX
I have never been a fan of pickled beets, but now I am inspired to try. My canner has been seeing lots of jam, and now we are moving into tomato sauce! I love tomato season.
Do you ever go to the Tonasket Barter Faire? I would love to trade you some of my wild berry jam (hucklebarrys, Saskatoon, mulberry from the Kootenays) for some of your peach lavender.